It's not just good food, not just friendly staff, or the unique family style experience...make an evening adventure out of this wonderful little gem of a restaurant!

While down in San Luis Obispo, I was challenged with trying to find a cuisine that we hadn't been to before. Being a huge foodie and world traveled I thought this would be impossible. It did take a bit of creative internet searching, and expanding the search parameters outside of SLO a bit. Finally found a mention of 10th Street Basque Cafe and was thrilled. This was less than 30 minutes north of SLO but absolutely worth the drive. It is all about the total experience here.

Family style doesn't typically appeal to me, but this was in a comfortable small groups of several regulars and ultra friendly staff, so it was fantastic.

The food was wonderful, from the most phenomenal potato dish to the pumpkin bread pudding, the only thing that I wished for was more stomach space.

The Chef was the cherry on top. Welcoming from the minute that you come in, Dallas would present most courses himself. You could feel his enthusiasm for his dishes as he described each and while he stopped to greet and chat with the guests.

Don't miss the crazy graffiti bathroom!

Definitely a try and must try again.

I live in the Santa Ynez Valley and drive through San Miguel ... pffffft ... who knows how many times, always on the way to somewhere, or on the way back from the same or a different somewhere. And I always think, "I should stop here in San Miguel and check it out; it looks like an interesting place" ... but I always kept going, driven by the need to reach my destination or by the desire to get home. In any event, recent events gave me an opportunity to actually visit San Miguel and to dine at the Tenth Streeth Basque Cafe with a friend. As is the case at most Basque restaurants, the food is served "family" style, at a several communal tables; they have seatings for dinner on Friday and Saturday at 7 and on Sunday at 6. The food was incredible: we were served delicious homemade bread with tapenade, a homemade soup, followed by a selection of delicious tapas. Afte r the tapas, we were served with an amazingly fresh salad -- it tasted as though it had just come out of the ground ! The main course was a delicious red pepper and pork pie ... the crust was was a meal in itself but the whole thing was delicious: mushrooms, red peppers, gravy,... And then dessert ... a pumpkin thingy with chocolate chips soaked in rum with cream I was a blithering idiot at this point ! It was an amazing meal .. truly Une Grande Bouffe ! There was, however, a down-side: the "family-style" dining favoured by Basque restaurants can create difficulties ... as an example. I went to the 10th Street Basque Cafe with a friend. We were seated opposite to one another at the end of a long table; then a gentleman was seated on my left and someone else was seated across from him next to my friend. In any event, this was clearly a group that had come together. The man to my left was fool and kept braying like a donkey, such that it was impossible for my friend and I to have any sort of conversation and we ended up trading places (we got a bottle of wine out of it !). .... Anyway ... long story short ... the food is incredible, definitely the real thing but if you don't come as part of a large group, you need to say so when you make your reservation and hope that you can be seated in a quieter area.

Compliments of the chef - started with home made bread and olive spread. Very delicious. For lunch, my boyfriend had steak sandwich and I had salad and paella dish. We both had very large glasses of ice teas. Overall very good food and cute atmosphere. Everything came to about 30 dollars and was well worth it. There are no menus, just what the chef prepares. Our portions were all very healthy and we were both stuffed on our way out. :)
Will come back again!

Having read the reviews, we were very excited about our evening at the Tenth Street Cafe. The food wasn't worth it, the drink wasn't worth it, and the service definitely wasn't worth it. We have eaten at Basque restaurants around the country and this definitely was the worst. The menu was uninspiring and the quantities were sparse (one small chicken thigh per person with noodles for an entree). The Chardonnay wine served was awful which is a hard thing to do given the great wineries in the region. The servers put food out and disappeared for extended periods of time. Time between seating and entree was 90 minutes with small tapas served about every 10 minutes. We ended the evening still hungry and very disappointed.